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Monday, 5 August 2013

The Bees and the bees. Or, could do better in the title department.

"Oh, it is nice, I won't deny that. But the bees! There're just so many bees! Good heavens, yes. Bees!"

The face of the sun had come, shyly peeking from behind bush and thicket and had risen. Joyfully, it had reached up beyond the trees and rubbed across the sky like a cat. You know? When they rub against things. Well, a lion looks more like the sun. I suppose lions do that? Anyway, after that, it had stretched and yawned and for one brief moment that had shocked astronomers and confused everyone else, it had jumped back a bit, but now the sun had descended. Nightcap on and candle lit, it led itself to bed.

And for all that time, I'd been stuck in a small, stereotypical British pub. You know the kind, you've seen them on American TV shows where they pretend to be in England. Everyone has bad teeth and they're drinking out of glass tankards and the food's bad. That's the kind of crude national stereotypes I hate, but then again, you can't expect anything better than crude generalisations from Americans. Human waste, that's what they are, with no right to live on God's green earth.

I think I got a little bit distracted. First it was that lion thing, then the ethnic hate. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that I'd been dragged to a public house in the early hours of the morning and held there, trapped by aggressive and forceful conversation, by a dear old friend. A blessed school chum. I'd forgotten he existed, and frankly, whenever I lost sight of him, I forgot about him again.

"Now, the thing about these bees is... wait for it... They're not properly insured! Now, of course, the bees themselves wouldn't have insurance; that would be ridiculous! No, how would they sign the paperwork? No, their owners don't have insurance. Yes, bee insurance. Its a great thing, is bee insurance. Now, are you sure I can't interest you in taking out one of our policies? They're very competitively priced."

"Thank you, but no." I replied. "It's not that I'm not interested, but I don't actually have any bees. As I've told you. Over a dozen times. Over, in fact, a baker's dozen times. I don't have any bees. I don't have bee-related paraphernalia. I don't have a huge quantity of honey that requires financial safeguards to protect my income should said honey be damaged or stolen by bees. Even " - and here I interrupted him - " Even if the honey is damaged through human or other, non-bee, species-based error."

"Oh. Well, right... " He replied. He had a name, I think, but I forgot somewhere between the not caring and the drinking. "Well, what about wasps? Got any wasps? I can insure them as well. Very popular, are wasps, and they make delicious things. Not honey, of course, but little scones. And crisps, can't go wrong with wasp crisps."

I nodded sagely. Later, of course, I would discover - with fatal consequences - that you could actually go wrong with wasp crisps. But that's a story for another day.

Actually, I might as well tell it now, because I have no idea where I'm going with this.

I had some wasps at my cousin's wedding, and nine people died. It was the crisps' fault, although no-one knows how they did it. Something, something, pun on the phrase 'fried', which could refer to the process of cooking crisps by frying, or execution by electrocution.

That was unsatisfying, wasn't it?

Anyway, the day had drawn to a close, like a blind or curtain someone had closed at the end of the day. The pub closed, and a man said 'gents' a lot, and we spilled into the night air. Not literally the air, we were still on the ground. We can't fly, the sky is for Gods and bees alone.